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Multi-grain Cream Cheese Sourdough with Multi-grain Scalded Soaker

January 7, 2013 - 1:27pm

dabrownman

Multi-grain Cream Cheese Sourdough with Multi-grain Scalded Soaker

This is the first bread bake in 2013 and we wanted to get back to our favorite every day bread type; a sourdough multi-grain with a multigrain scald or with multigrain sprouts or both. This time we use a scalded soaker and finally got around to putting some cream cheese in the mix ala Ian’s many breads with cheese.

2 days before dough mixing we got the 100% hydration levain going over two builds that took 12 hours and then it was retarded for 36 hours in the fridge

The day before the dough mixing, we scalded the multi-grain berries and set them aside to soak for 24 hours. We used a little more water than normal in hopes of having some left over soaker water that we could use for part of the liquid in the dough.

The night before dough mixing we strained off the soaker water, replacing it with fresh hot water, and used this along with additional water to autolyse the flours, potato flakes, malts, salt, Toady Tom’s and Tasty and Toasted Tidbits overnight on the 64 F counter.

The whole grain home ground flours included oats, rye, whole wheat spelt, Kamut, quinoa and barley. Home made red and white malts were used as was the new favorite flavor booster; TTTTT’s, a toasted mix of wheat bran, wheat germ, oat bran and sifted middling of various home ground flours.

Once the levain and autolyse came together in the mixing bowl and were hand mixed to incorporate the wet with the dry, we started French slap and folds. The gluten developed very well and after 10 minutes the 72% hydration dough was taught, smooth and glossy.

After a 15 minute rest in a covered, oiled bowl, the first of (3) S&F’s 15 minutes apart, was completed. The soaked grain berries were drained and dried with a paper towel and incorporated with the cream cheese on the 2nd S&F. By the 3rd S&F, the cream cheese and grain berries were evenly distributed and the dough was much looser and wet. It felt like about a 78% hydration dough.

The completed dough was allowed to ferment and develop on the counter for 1 hour before dividing into two loaves and pre-shaped into balls. The final shaping into boules happened 10 minutes later and the dough was placed seam side up into rice floured baskets.

The baskets were sealed into a nearly new, trash can liner and allowed to ferment and develop on the counter for 1 hour before being placed into the fridge for a long and low temperature 36 hour retard at 36 F.

No peaking was allowed but my apprentice did look at the 24 hour mark. After a peek she thought we should bake them off after letting them warm up but I decided to bake them off after the full 36 hours and bake them off cold instead.

We fired up old Betsy to500 Fand put our two favorite thick aluminum DO’s, the Magna Ware Oval Turkey Roaster with trivet insert and a great round Goodwill find, inside the beast to heat.

After 36 hours the dough looked over proofed by volume but, after poking it, the dough was so cold it didn’t know it was even being poked. I took this as a sign to get them in the DO’s very cold so they wouldn’t collapse.

I considered not slashing them at all to keep possible deflating disturbances to a minimum but finally did one with a single central slash and the other with a top mounted triangle. Both took a nose dive in height afterwards but we hoped they might recover in the oven.

Into the hot DO’s they went with a ¼ c of water and into the oven followed. We lowered the temperature to 450 F 2 minutes after the DO’s hit the oven and continued to steam them for a total of 20 minutes before taking the lids off and baking them at 425 F, convection this time, for 10 minutes rotating the DO’s ever 5 minutes.

At the 30 minute mark we took the bread out of the DO’s and finished the baking on the stone. This took another 10 minutes, rotating them every 5 minutes, before the inside temperature reached 205 F. They then rested on the stone with the oven off and door ajar for 10 minutes before being moved to the cooling rack.

The boules didn’t spring so much as spread. We expected this due to the over proofing but they did blister up, crack and brown deeply with a decent bloom. The crust was very crunchy crispy as it acme out of the oven and stayed more crispy than chewy as it cooled.

The crumb is open, moist, slightly glossy and soft. The cheese really helped out the crumb and it is one of the nicest ones we have baked for this kind of bread. It tastes terrific and will be one of favorite sandwich breads going forward.

We really like this bread and if the hydration was a little lower, say 68, before the soaker went in, we think it would have lifted more and spread less.

the variety of goodies and the baskets add so much. Lovely to look at and can imagine the depth of flavor that you've achieved. That crumb picture is worthy of framing.

My latest find is 2.5 gallon plastic storage bags made by Hefty. They are kind of pricey at around ten cents each but I use them over and over. They will hold the coiled wooden banneton but don't open wide enough to take in the linen lined wicker brotform.

that if you are making a multi-grain bread you might as well throw in what ever grains you have little bits and pieces of hanging around doing nothing :-) I think these breads taste great because of the grain mix and the add ins like Tom's Toasted Bits (a super flavorful combination for such little effort). The red and white malts are flavor and color boosters and enzyme enhancers too as is the long autolyse and using the soaker water. The scalded berries add flavor and texture. The retarding of the levain and the dough for long periods really brings out the sour. Now, if my apprentice remembers to only let the dough retard for 24 hours instead of 36 maybe it won't be over proofed! But, she did warn me this time. Thankful for little favors, we have all the time in the world to do these crazy bread things and experimant as much as we want.

I have to admit that I use the cheapest tall kitchen trash can liners I can find at the dollar store for proofing basket covers! They don't have to hold heavy trash and anything fits in them - so far!

Glad you liked the bread Barbra. I hope you are resting after your fine baking marathon the past few days!

Do you use them whole or do you grind them up a bit like steel cut oats?

Why scald and soak for 24 hours?

When I have used coarsly ground grains I have been cooking them like I would steel cut oats and am thinking that I would like to try a different method - hence all of my questions about why you do what you do....

I like to heat the berries up (see my post to Varda) till just boiling in the MW and let them soak 8 hours. Then reserve the water and then add more fresh water and heat them again in the MW till just boiling. The water is usd for the liquid in the dough.

Since I add the grains whole to the dough during the S & F''s, I have found that 24 hours makes them nice and soft so their are no hard bits in the dough or finished bread - just chewy little bits.

I haven't decided whether I like the sprouts or soaked berries better in bread. The soaked ones give us the water that is so good and the sprouts give us the enzymes.......Best to just use both right?

Thanks for this information....Another question arises. Why not just boil the berries for a longer time period instead of the 2 - 8 hour soaks you now work with? I am thinking if I try this I would be tempted to boil the berries in the morning for about 20 or so minutes and then let them sit all day in the water they were boiled in. At the end of the day, drain and use the water in the dough as you do and the grains too which should be soft.

Have you found that your method produces better results in the long run or is it something that simply works within your time frame for working with your breads?

The reason we did it this way has everything to do with not having the 7 P's at work and nothing to do with producing better results. The 7 P's are- Proper, prior, planning, prevents, pi*s, poor performance.

Someone who has their act together , unlike my apprentice and her master, would have chosen a container to microwave the berries in that would hold them, hold enough water for them soak up after a near boiled experience and then also be big enough to hold enough left over water to use as the liquid in the bake.

Sadly, the largest coffee cup I own and used held the berries and enough water for them to soak up but not nearly enough liquid for the bake. So I squeezed out the berries, added more water and near boiled the berries twice. This still didn't produce enough left over soaker water to do the bake and I had to supplement the dough water with some RO Water too! Very poor planning indeed. Next time a large bowl will be the container! The MW sure does make it much easier than cooking on a stove though.

I am sooo glad I asked this question! Years ago I latched onto the 7 P's and thought I would never forget them while the children grew up but, alas, somewhere they turned into the 5 P's and I have been unable to locate the 2 missing P's until now. I am soooo happy you have been keeping them safe for me all of these years! They are now written in ink inside of my kitchen cupboard....despite the fact that my children are mostly grown now :-)

Oh, and thanks for the info. on the seed prep. too - mustn't forget the original question! Glad to see your baking habits are similar to mine.....making things work in MY kitchen :-)

You are pretty good with the super fine crumbs in our book which is why you are the one and only 'Crumby Baker' :-)

You only have to make TTTTT's once in a great while if you make a bunch at one time. You have great middling and bran you are sifting out now that you are grinding grain seriously with your KoMo. Just toast them as course as they come out in a dry skillet. One trip to Whole Foods and you have all the grains I used from their bins but you don't have to use them all - rye spelt and ww should do nicely and is my usual mix. I do like the oat flour (just grind up some whole oats) and dehydrated potato flakes in the mix and rarely leave them out.

Put the scald berries in a coffee mug, fill with water and microwave on high for 2 and a half minutes. I drain the water off the soaker after 8 hours and reserve it for the autolyse. The I fill the coffee mug full of water and MW again and reserve that liquid in 8 hours. I fill the cup with water one more time but don't MW it and let it sit for 8 hours. Scalded soaker done and most of the liquid is ready for the autolyse.

Making the red and white malts is a one time deal too. Just soak the berries ( I use rye and spelt mostly since the sprout at the same time) Soak then for 4 hours and then spread them out on damp paper towels and cover with damp paper towels and plastic wrap. I do them on a plastic cutting board. Keep them damp by adding a little water with wet palms every day. After 4 days just dry them out in a 150 F oven. When dry then take half and grind them into white malt and them raise the temperature for the remaining sprouts 50 F at a time every 20 minutes until you get to 350 F. Don't let them burn. Then grind these into red malt.

Now you have plenty of malts and TTTTT for making who knows how many loaves of bread. It sounds like a lot of work but it isn't and it isn't difficult either or I couldn't or wouldn't do it :-)

It's the little toasted bits, malts, scalds and sprouts that make simple breads complex and beautimous from a taste, smell and visual perspectives.

I think your breads are already pretty darn healthy as they are anyway and all are pretty darn beautiful inside and out too. Don't know about the taste but they have to taste as good as they look.

I just added a little bit of something different to each new bake that I pick up from TFL posts. Before you know it, you have all these great add ins just waiting for your whims of what you want to include on the next bake. Trying to do them all at once for one bake would be too much but a little at a time works out better.

Folks eat my bread now and say 'I've never had bread like this before ' and I say 'Me neither!'

its hard not to let the Amylase enzymes get outta control with sprouted wheat or malted grains. Does it taste a bit like a crumpet?

If im worried about enzyme activity going crazy (resulting in a gummy crumb) I feed my starter regularly to minimise the start enzyme count. as you have used several 'builds' there is more opportunity for you dough to go south. ie go too long without feeding. using flour without additives helps and apparently vitamin c also helps. quality of the flour is another contributing factor.

Is it like an English Muffin? The starter was part of the one I had built from a rye sour / Desem combo starter into white Italian one for a panettone bake. It had been fed every 6 hours for 3 days with white flour for the panettone and then, after being in the fridge for a couple of days I converted some of it back to a starter with more whole grains over (2) 6 hour feedings (builds) before refrigerating it again. It never went more than 6 hours without feeding except when it was in the fridge and it doesn't do much in the fridge except sit there and get a little more sour. It wasn't as sour as my normal rye sour but I didn't want to throw it away.

The red malt has the enzymes killed off due the high heat of the roast, 350 F, and is used for color and taste. The white malt's enzymes are intact after sprouting and drying at less the 150 F but it is a very small amount at 3 g and that is the only add being used as malt or sprout to convert carbs and starch to sugar for the yeast to feed on. The whole grains used as flours are all home ground from berries and are unmalted. Any enzymes in the soaker berries is also killed off in the high heat of the boil - twice both over 150 F. The white flours I use are also unbleached, unmalted and not bromated. I don't think that the 3 g of white malt where the enzymes have not been killed off is an issue in this bake due to its small amount and as nearly the entire ferment and proof is at 36 F in the fridge.

There isn't much fat in the dough as the cream cheese used was a neuchatel that has 33% less fat than regular cream cheese. Normally I don't put any fat in bread dough except for pizza, laminated doughs, some Italian breads and sweet desertbreads like panettone and some citrus tea breads. I wanted to see what this small amount of cream cheese would do to the bread though. Couldn't taste it but I think it did help to keep the dough moist though as most fat does with bread crumb.

Vitamin c or vinegar is an acid that when used in bread can help toughen the gluten structure made from weaker gluten flours. Small amounts in the starter can lower the Ph, like orange juice and pineapple juice do, and help in establishing then the right environment for LABS and yeast to thrive in a SD culture.

This is the kind of crumb I shoot for on every one of my bakes from an open, moistness and texture point of view but this one the dough was over-proofed too - as you can see from the photos. I think it is the outdoor crumb photos that has you seeing a gummy crumb. Here is an indoor photo that doesn't have any direct sunlight on it. Does it still look gummy?

It is a nice bread and you don't have to worry about any adverse amylase enzymatic activity in the dough since most of the enzymes are dead due to heat, the flours are unmalted and the ferment and proofing are in a 36 F fridge - just don't overproof it! The whole grains really want the yeast to take off even in the cold. I suspect it is the spelt.

Thanks for commenting and they weren't critical and were helpful from my perspective. Donlt worry, I will keep posting all of my bakes - good or bad - otherwise it isn't much of a blog :-)

is about as good as it gets for food variety freshness and price. Many of the winter green veg is grown here like lettuce, la;ecabbage etc, the rest comes in from Mexico. With so many grocery chains duking it out in Phoenix for customers unlike anywhere else in the country, the pricing is the best in the North America for food - nothing even close.

I just got 6 pounds of tomatoes in the winter for a buck. With the fresh veg and fruits and other foods so cheap year round it is wise to eat fresh and have as much a variety as you can keep in the fridge with it going bad. making sun dried tomatoes today since we can't eat them all. We're are so blessed to live here.

Here is tonight's salad and today's lunch. They are always the same - varied, fresh, tasty and healthy. You have to eat like this if you want to live forever :-) Like bread - healthy food and eating habits is just a matter of not settling for less - and once you learn how, you don't have to!

you should have seen the pannetone. That was gummy. So bad I could't even take a photo of it - even after it was toasted :-) I think sometimes the photos taken out side in the AZ sun can sometimes throw off what the bread is really like. You pick up the glossy inside more and it does look more moist than it is sometimes. I relate gummy to dense rather than an open crumb too since the gluten can break down when enzymes get out of control and the structure for holes is removed . Open can be gummy too if under baked but, when it is baked to 205 F on the inside, it should be moist instead. The over proofing did hurt the spring and enhance the spread though. The higher hydration didn't help any either.

I was kind of shocked how wet and sloppy the dough got after adding in the soaker, which I dried with a paper towel, and the cream cheese. It went from a really nice dough I'm used to to something like a dry ciabatta! Next time I'm going to cut back on the hydration a few points. I did like your method of a higher levain percent of the total dough too ala Peter Reinhart I think you told me one other time.

Have some Bao with some crispy Peking Duck skin and plum jam with some breast duck meat on the side. You will forget all about bread for a little while.

Love all the care you've put into this loaf- sprouts, soakers, etc. I can only sit and wonder happily about how complex and delicious it must be. To me, the crumb doesn't look gummy at all, but rather glossy and translucent like many high-hydration breads.

This one of our favorite combinations of sour, texture and flavor. You get a big reward for a lower percent of whole grains in the bread. Just delicious! Doing a similar one today only Italian with the scald replaced with olives, rosemary, garlic, sun dried tomato, Asiago and Parmesan cheese. Only doing a 24 hour refrigerator final proof this time and - no slashing required :-)

I'm wondering about the baskets you're using. They look like inexpensive baskets, similar to some that I have. How do you know that the baskets are food safe? I'm concerned about where these baskets are made, and the materials used.

of the baskets at Goodwill for 50 cents each. They were both made in China and I am completely sure that are not rated food safe in any way. I pick out ones that are either willow, wicker or rattan and make sure that they are not painted or coated in any way. When I get them home I wash them with soap and water and dry them in the AZ sun for a couple of days under harsh UV light.

They and the bread are coated in rice flour. The bread is baked to 205 F that will kill anything alive and there isn't anything that the baskets could transfer to the bread that would be any more harmful than any other container. I also have some plastic ones that can be washed after each use too but they look like real baskets.

I'm sure it might bother some folks though and to them I say - don't use them if you have concerns - it isn't worth losing sleep over. I also retard and proof the baskets and the bread in them in non food grade trash can liners too. I have no worries about that either. I do worry about my tap water though so I soften it first and then run it through an RO system to make sure it's not going to poison me.

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